BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964)

Director: Mario Bava

Writers: Marcello Fondato, Mario Bava, Giuseppe Barillà, Mary Arden (adapting dialogue into English)

Producers: Massimo Patrizi, Alfredo Mirabile

Cast: Cameron Mitchell, Eva Bartok, Thomas Reiner, Mary Arden, Arianna Gorini, Lea Lander (as Lea Krugher), Claude Dantes, Dante DiPaolo, Massimo Righi, Franco Ressel, Luciano Pigozzi, Francesca Ungaro, Harriette White Medin, Giuliano Raffaelli, Heidi Stroh, Enzo Cerusico, Nadia Anty, Mary Carmen (as Mara Carmosino), Goffredo Unger (uncredited), Calisto Calisti (uncredited), Romano Moraschini (uncredited)

A masked man in black brutally murders Isabella (Francesca Ungaro), a model at the Rome fashion house Christian Haute Couture. Many of the models and staff at the fashion house have secrets to hide. While Police Inspector Silvestri (Thomas Reiner) investigates, the killer claims more victims. Silvestri suspects one of the men who work at the fashion house or are having relationships with the models.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

The now-revered Italian director Mario Bava worked in many genres, but his horror films are what have received the most acclaim. He is also celebrated for originating the giallo film, that Italian subgenre of horror and suspense. Bava’s 1963 The Girl Who Knew Too Much is usually considered the first giallo film. However, it is his Blood and Black Lace, made the following year, which established the iconic stylistic template most associated with the genre. All of the traditional giallo elements are there: a black-gloved mystery killer; beautiful victims; prolonged stalk-and-kill set pieces; plenty of suspects and scandal in a posh environment; and the use of music, lighting, and editing that stylize the violence and terror.

Blood and Black Lace is must-see viewing for Mario Bava fans that showcases the director’s visual aesthetic. It was the signpost pointing the way for the giallo genre that would become increasingly popular in its native Italy and abroad by the 1970s. Bava and the film genre he initiated would inspire and influence Italian directors such as Dario Argento and Sergio Martino as well as Americans like Brian De Palma and John Carpenter.

It seems almost unthinkable that this pioneering film in this distinctive Italian genre was not successful in Italy at the time of its release. Despite some of its influences, such as the then-popular German krimi films (usually based on the crime thriller novels of British author Edgar Wallace), Blood and Black Lace may have been just a bit ahead of its time. The mystery aspect of the story is little more than a guessing game rather than a clue-laden plot. This is clearly an exercise in style over substance. Just as much as any Gothic horror film, the best giallo films are meant to disturb and excite with their atmosphere and menace.

One distinction that probably made the giallo an acquired taste was the lack of the sort of moral triumph concluding most typical horror and crime films at that time. Giallo films reveled in a world of glamorous sleaze, amoral ambitions, and sadistic violence. Representatives of law and order meant to solve the mystery and apprehend the culprit were not the main protagonists and were often ineffectual.

Another reason that Blood and Black Lace may have been off-putting was that there are no characters we can really bond with. They are all rather remote or secretive and conniving. This just confirms the cold and corrupt environment that makes the ongoing murders seem inevitable.

It is not surprising that Mario Bava would initiate this stylish and cynical genre. Bava had a strong streak of pessimism regarding the capitalistic, modern world. His later Bay of Blood (1971) is not only his most violent production and a direct influence on the American slasher film; it also seemed to vent his disdain for society’s amoral greed that consumes almost the entire cast. That pervasive pessimism seems to have its roots in Blood and Black Lace. Most of its main characters are corrupt or shamed and may be capable of anything. Their conflicts and secrets seem to be the catalyst for ongoing homicide, despite the best efforts of those enforcers of the social order, the police.

The reason that any of this engages the audience is its technique of presentation. Mario Bava had always been a great cinematographer, and his colorful and moody lighting here is every bit as striking as his earlier black-and-white classics. His visuals and shot choices tease us as much as the identity of the killer. It is Bava’s artistry that makes this grim tale of murder amid a cast of one-dimensional characters into a visceral experience for the viewers.

The biggest name in the cast is American star Cameron Mitchell as the fashion house co-director Massimo Morlacchi. He exudes a cold reserve that makes him seem just as suspect as anyone else. Mitchell made plenty of films in Europe, and this was the second of his three Bava-directed pictures. Mitchell and Bava seemed to really hit it off, and Mitchell considered Bava probably the greatest director he had ever worked work with. Mitchell admired Bava’s creativity and ingenuity in making good and interesting films despite budgetary limitations.

Eva Bartok also tops the cast list as the widowed Countess Cristiana Cuomo, the fashion house owner and business partner with Massimo Morlacchi. She appears to be all business and seems as remote a personality as just about every other character. Her performance becomes much more interesting as the film progresses and the plot develops. Blood and Black Lace would be the penultimate film in Bartok’s 20-year career of film acting in both the US and Europe.

If ever an actress went above and beyond the call of duty for a film, it was Mary Arden. Her character of model Peggy Peyton was subjected to probably more prolonged physical abuse than any other woman in film up to that time. While we take such physicality in movies for granted, this is all being performed in take after bruising take by Arden without a stunt double. I hope all of the pain and terror she expressed was just good acting. Arden was also nearly killed by the sharp latch of an automobile trunk lid that slammed down on her while filming a scene. The multilingual Mary Arden even pitched in to do the translation of the screenplay’s dialogue into English. After all of that injury and effort, Mary Arden never got paid!

Another lady in the cast deserving kudos for efforts way beyond her job description is Lea Lander. Billed as Lea Krugher in Blood and Black Lace, she plays the model Greta. A decade later Lander would act in Mario Bava’s Rabid Dogs (1974). That film’s post-production was not completed due to the bankruptcy proceedings resulting when one of the film’s financial backers died. Rabid Dogs went unfinished and unseen for almost a quarter century until Lea Lander took the initiative to help finance its DVD release. This would be worked on further by Mario Bava’s son Lamberto and grandson Roy along with producer Alfredo Leone to be released in 2002 as Kidnapped. Bravo to black-laced beauty Lea Lander! She not only graced a classic giallo, but she also resurrected Mario Bava’s most atypical and cynical film.

A key accessory to any giallo film hoping to make a stylish impression is the soundtrack. Carlo Rustichelli’s Blood and Black Lace score sets the pace for the musical flourishes that adorn the genre’s best. His main theme is sinister lounge music that is reprised throughout the film, often building up to horrific intensity. Rustichelli also scored two of director Bava’s Gothic horror classics: The Whip and the Body (1963) and Kill, Baby… Kill! (1966).

For the giallo curious, Blood and Black Lace is the perfect introduction. It is the trendsetting model of the genre designed to knock ‘em dead by that morbid maestro Mario Bava. So, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation? You can ditch the tuxes and gowns and just barge on into this sanguinary salon for a bloody good time.

BARON BLOOD (1972)

Director: Mario Bava

Writers: Vincente Fotre, adapted for the screen by William A. Bairn

Producer: Alfredo Leone

Cast: Joseph Cotton, Elke Sommer, Massimo Girotti, Alan Collins aka Luciano Pigozzi, Antonio Cantafora, Nicoletta Elmi, Rada Rasimov, Dieter Tressler, Humi Raho, Rolf Halwich, Gustavo De Nardo, Valeria Sabel, Irio Fantini 

American college student Peter Kleist (Antonio Cantafora) goes to Austria to visit his uncle Professor Karl Hummel (Massimo Girotti) and research his roots. Peter is the descendant of the notorious seventeenth century nobleman Baron Otto Von Kleist. In his day, the terrorized locals knew the sadistic Baron as "Baron Blood." The Baron was supposed to have been destroyed by the curse of Elizabeth Holly, a woman he had put to death as a witch. Peter meets up with Eva Arnold (Elke Sommer), who is assisting on a renovation of the Baron’s castle. The two of them try using an incantation from an old Kleist family parchment to try raising the spirit of Baron Von Kleist.  The incantation seems to work, but they are unable to send the Baron back to his grave.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Baron Blood was the first film of that Italian maestro of horror cinema Mario Bava that I had seen. I think it is one of his most accessible films to the average viewer, and it is still a favorite for this flashback fanatic. It seems that it is not as revered as many of director Bava’s other works. Some may see it as a retread of familiar images and themes from his earlier efforts, but Bava still manages real gusto with his visuals and has the terrific asset of the castle shooting location in Vienna, Austria.

 

Perhaps the been-there-done-that reaction some have to this film is due to the influences that Bava was channeling into this. Gothic horror had been done to death by Hammer films in England for over a decade at this time, and Bava had already done his own gothic horror projects in the '60s. Bava also seems to be referencing scenes from a few other horror films such as The Leopard Man (1943), The Haunting (1963), and House of Wax (1953).

The story has both the visceral and ethereal aspects of horror that make for a very satisfying mix. This is quite important to lend a bit of dimension to what is a pretty simple story. That is not any sort of criticism, for I think that a simple story well told is often the most effective. As the story plays out in the end, it has a lingering sense of unease due to the supernatural resolution that is accidentally triggered by a potential victim, after a more deliberate attempt to stop the menace fails. The protagonists and the audience are given some knowledge of how to defeat the evil Baron, but implementing that knowledge effectively is still uncertain. Good horror of the supernatural variety has to walk a fine line between the rational and irrational. If the rules are all spelled out, that may be playing fair with the audience, but a little ambiguity goes a long way toward making the audience react at a deeper level to the supernatural. That sense of the unknown and the unfathomable is how most of us relate to the subject.

The other aspect of the story that I really like is the heavy gothic atmosphere infesting the modern day setting. Some have speculated that the Baron (and Bava?) seems to be retaliating against contemporary encroachments upon the old and traditional. It seems fitting that an early kill by the Baron is of someone trying to buy a bottle of soda from a Coke vending machine installed in the Baron’s castle. I suppose I’d also be a bit cross if, after three hundred years with a treasure chest full of gold and pearls, I still didn’t have the correct change for a Fanta Orange.

Elke Sommer is proof positive that the mini-skirt is long overdue for a comeback. Despite being a one-dimensional character, as all the characters are in this film, she is likable and really sells the horror with her terrified reactions.

As Alfred Becker, the millionaire who buys the Baron’s castle during an auction, Joseph Cotton headlines the cast and seems to be relishing every scene that he is in. He made a few other Euro-horrors around this time, and this is probably my favorite role among them. Of course, he also starred in Shadow of a Doubt (1943); the film Alfred Hitchcock considered his favorite among his own works.

Early '70s Euro-horror creepy kid perennial Nicoletta Elmi plays Peter’s little cousin Gretchen. She rather conveniently seems tuned into the spiritual vibe necessary to help our heroes deal with the Baron. She was also in Bava’s previous film A Bay of Blood (1971), aka Twitch of the Death Nerve. 

Another perennial Euro-horror creepy actor is Luciano Pigozzi, aka Alan Collins. He portrays the castle caretaker Fritz as such an obnoxious, cackling cretin that we figure he is deserving of nothing more than adding to the body count. He provides a few surprises.

Rada Rassimov plays the pivotal role of Christine, the psychic and medium that learns how the Baron can be destroyed again from the spirit of the witch that cursed him. Rassimov was also memorable in giallo king Dario Argento’s second film The Cat O’ Nine Tails (1970).

Baron Blood gives this horror hound the grisly gristle that I never tire of gnawing on. It is a favorite course of grue that can be served again and again as prepared by that gothic gourmet Mario Bava.